After Transmigration: Building a Kingdom in Turbulent Times-Chapter 976 - 961: Pain

Zhao Hanzhang stood up straight, positioned herself between the two and said, "Let’s play a game now. I’ll ask questions, and let’s see who can answer the fastest and most accurately. The slower one will have to donate a slice of meat to the executioner. After all, I’ve promised him, so I should at least give him two bushels of grain, right?"

Shi Bai widened his eyes and said incredulously, "You... you have no integrity. You clearly said that if I just confess then..."

"I’ve changed my mind," Zhao Hanzhang looked down at him lightly, with a smile on her lips, "You two annoyed me, so I need to find a way to vent my anger, don’t I?"

"You... you’re insane. You’re a madwoman..."

Zhao Hanzhang ignored him, casually opened her mouth and asked, "His name is Shi Bai, what is your name?"

While Shi Bai was still cursing Zhao Hanzhang, the man next to him answered tremblingly, "I... I am Gao Tong, from Taishan."

Zhao Hanzhang then turned to the executioner and said, "Shi Bai didn’t catch the answer, cut him."

Shi Bai hadn’t expected even such a question to count. In panic, he felt a pain in his chest, and a slice of meat was cut off by the grinning executioner.

Zhao Hanzhang continued to ask, "Why does Wang Han want to stop me from returning to Yu State?"

Shi Bai and Gao Tong both fell silent, neither answered.

Zhao Hanzhang then stared at the two and asked, "Unwilling to answer? Then each of you get cut."

Gao Tong shouted in terror, "No, no, we don’t know, we genuinely don’t know!"

Shi Bai also yelled, "We were just ordered to incite rebels to revolt and prevent you from returning to court, we truly don’t know anything else."

"What reasons did you use to incite them?"

Shi Bai rushed to say, "Wang Heng has always been ambitious but lacks family background and virtue. We incited him by saying that as long as he found a reason to rebel and raised a rebel army, the Great General’s benevolence would surely recruit him."

Zhao Hanzhang said with a stern face, "I don’t judge people by their family background. If he has the heart, he can come to me. Why resort to such crooked methods?"

Gao Tong, fearing she would order him cut, immediately scrambled to answer, "That also requires starting small. When the Great General employs people, aside from those with great talent and deep reputation, all others start as county officials, and the fastest speed would take two or three years to rise to County Magistrate. How long would it take to reach the General to take orders?"

"While surrendering immediately draws the General’s attention and can be granted a position, not lower than Assistant General."

Zhao Hanzhang chuckled lowly upon hearing this, her eyes bloodshot, sneered, "What a calculation indeed."

Zhao Hanzhang suddenly asked, "Where is Wang Han now?"

Their eyeballs slid violently for a moment, but they answered simultaneously, "In Xuzhou."

Zhao Hanzhang snorted and said to the executioner, "Cut Gao Tong."

Gao Tong screamed tragically, and after being cut three pieces of meat, he shouted, "I don’t know where he went, but when we left Xuzhou, I heard he was preparing a carriage and preparing cloth, medicine, etc., seemingly to disguise a convoy heading to Yu State."

Zhao Hanzhang then raised her hand to stop the executioner, moved to Gao Tong’s other side, looked him in the eye and asked closely, "What kind of medicine?"

"Many kinds, but mostly wound medicine. Among them is a hundred-year-old ginseng, said to be for saving lives."

Gao Tong cried with tears and snot covering his face, sobbing, "Great General, ask whatever you want, we will answer everything we know, please don’t take further action."

Zhao Hanzhang snorted softly, turned and left, "You interrogate them, get all the facts for me."

The trusted aides acknowledged her order, and once Zhao Hanzhang was out of sight, they dared to lift their heads.

The trusted aides shivered, feeling that today’s master was even more terrifying than General Yuan.

Zhao Hanzhang’s face turned gloomy. Zu Ti wandered over unknowingly and asked Zhao Hanzhang, "Master, did the interrogation yield any results?"

Zhao Hanzhang replied with a "Hmm," turning her gaze to the dark night. The direction was towards the city gate, where more than twenty thousand rebel soldiers were disarmed and detained outside the city, with two hundred thirty-nine corpses hanging densely on a wall.

It was her first time doing such a thing, and she wasn’t sure whether the future impact of these actions would be more positive or negative, so her heart was also uneasy.

Though her heart was panicked inside, her expression didn’t show much, appearing cold and sullen, as if she was still angry about the incident.

"Shi Zhi ah~"

Zu Ti slightly bowed, responding, "Master."

"People are as fragile as grass by the roadside, one pinch and they break, but people are not grass. Grass breaks but grows again with a breeze in spring, and can return to its former state within a year; hence I feel human life is like jewels, once shattered, it can’t be restored, so we must treasure and value it."

Zu Ti: "Jewels also have distinctions of value. In the Master’s mind, how are these distinctions drawn?"

Zhao Hanzhang withdrew her gaze from afar, glanced at him and said, "In my mind, all human lives are the same kind of jewel."

Zu Ti smiled noncommittally, "I thought that in the Master’s heart, the lives of students from the academy are more valuable, after all I’ve never seen you so angry."

Zhao Hanzhang said, "Zhao Yigui stated that during the defense of Wuyi County, seven hundred eighty-nine people died, in Tiao County more than two thousand died or were injured, in Fucheng also over a thousand, Zhao Jiashi and Zhao Yicheng were just two among them."

Zu Ti fell silent upon hearing this.

Zhao Hanzhang: "I am angry that Zhao Jiashi and Zhao Yicheng died due to conspiracy, and also angry that they gambled with the people’s lives; even more so, I hate their disregard for the lives of the whole world."

"The Xiongnu have been pacified, Northern Land’s six states all suffered drought and locust plague, the urgent task is disaster relief and saving lives. At this time there is a rebel army, do they want to plunge the world into chaos again?" Zhao Hanzhang said, "Such disregard for the lives of the common people makes me wish to cut them into pieces."

Zu Ti’s expression also turned somber upon hearing this and asked, "Who is responsible for this?"

Zhao Hanzhang did not reply with a name but reminded him, "Shi Zhi, I appoint you as Jizhou Governor not only to guard against Shi Le and Tuoba Yilu but also because you are reputable in Jizhou, you can quickly gain the people’s trust, I hope you can provide disaster relief soon, letting the people recuperate and thrive."

Zhao Hanzhang painfully said, "The people are suffering too much..."

Zu Ti hesitated, then asked awkwardly, "Master, how do you plan to deal with those rebel prisoners outside the city?"

Zhao Hanzhang: "Tomorrow Minister Fu will divide their household registration based on their hometown and form teams for them to return home, allocate land, farm, to get through next year’s difficulties."

Hearing this, Zu Ti couldn’t help stepping forward, asking, "Master, won’t you punish them?"

Zhao Hanzhang showed pain in her eyes, "The leaders are already executed, the rest were fooled ordinary people, let them return."

Can she kill them?

Obviously not.

Moreover, killing a group of cheering disaster victim commoners has no meaning;

Can she punish them?

What do they have left worth punishing?